By John Siegfried
Rudy Herndon's recent opinion article, chastising a local citizen for misstating one word in her letter to the editor, is very disturbing to me. Rudy said: ... "but some errors are so egregious that they demand a response." Rudy certainly is entitled to have his personal opinion published, even though in this case it was a highly personal attack on someone expressing an opinion.
Roberta Rothwell's letter, published on Jan. 10, pointed out that the newspaper had not covered a significant milestone in the many-pronged debate and legal maneuverings around the Jungo Landfill project. She referenced paperwork filed by Jungo, requesting reimbursement from the county for $611,000 in legal fees. Whether this filing was technically a new lawsuit or a new motion or a counter-motion or an appeal is not relevant. This request for reimbursement, while perhaps a "routine motion," as Mr. Herndon described it, is in my mind "a major legal development" because of the potential impact on our county. Perhaps $611,000 is not a significant amount of money to Mr. Herndon's thinking.
Other news sources, namely the Silver Pinyon Journal, found the request for reimbursement to be extremely newsworthy and published a story on Dec. 26, a mere four days (including Christmas!) after the motion was filed. It quickly had 18 comments posted; so SPJ was read and responded to in a short period of time by people that thought it important.
Ms. Rothwell did nothing to undermine the credibility of this newspaper. She was pointing out, that in her opinion, there had been a lapse in reporting, and her comments in that regard were factual.
To quote Mr. Herndon's piece ... "I wish I could be doing something else right now. Unfortunately, diversions like these eat up valuable time that could be spent on other story ideas..."
Mr. Herndon might better serve our community and the Humboldt Sun by sticking to reporting. His lengthy diatribe; consuming many column inches; tries to make the point that a readers opinion is not factual and therefore his delay in reporting is "MOOT" to borrow a phrase from the opinion of the Judge.
I've heard it said that the best defense is a good offense; that's what Mr. Herndon's opinion piece looked like to me. [[In-content Ad]]
